Breast milk used to be a luxury of the privileged aristocracy of the southern counties of England. Its high calcium and nutritional content made it one of the most sought after natural resources in Europe. Because it was considered a servant's work to feed children, wealthy mothers did not lactate and instead hired wet nurses to feed their babies and the lesser-known 'wet-maids', who would express milk for the older members of the household. In fact, rich children were allowed to feed from their nurse until they were thirteen, when they would switch to bottles, a transition which was marked by a ceremony known as 'teet-aging' (this is where the word teenager derives from).

The British gentry's diet at the time consisted of fresh seasonal vegetables, meat and bread together with a strong beer, wine and breast milk. Other products made from breast milk included breese (a creamy white cheese), brutter (similar to lard) and a cultured substance known as broghurt, which tasted like sugary cottage cheese.

It was only with the advent of world exploration and overseas wars that wealthy men were forced (due to the absence of lactating women or any suitable refrigeration device) to drink the milk of cows, goats and kangaroos as an alternative. With the establishment of tea plantations and the growing obsession with the British 'cuppa', well-known faces amongst the gentry (known as the 'cowchops comrades') began to endorse the consumption of cow's milk as an alternative to breast milk. Farmers began to realise that there was a growing market for cow's milk and began mass production, providing a large consumer group with milk at an affordable price. More and more women left the lactating profession, enticed by the glamorous image of tall dark dairy farmers and milk-maid uniforms, and before long the breast milk industry became a thing of the past.

Nowadays there are occasional reports of celebrities drinking breast milk as part of a fad diet, but this is unlikely to catch on. However, some doctors still consider it to be a necessary component of a healthy diet and suggest that, if we happen to know a lactating mother, we drink at least one glass a week.